Four: A Divergent Collection (Divergent Series Story)

Do you know what I forgot? Veronica Roth's writing sucks me in! When this book came in the mail , I could not forget about it. Normally books don't bother me until I pick them up. This one did. I couldn't forget about how much I wanted to read it. Her writing is fast paced and fun. This made me forget my bitterness and anger about this series and once again put me in the thrilling and amazing Divergent world.

Four's story was even more addictive than the original Divergent series to me. These short stories are fast paced and really got me inside Four's head. He is thoughtful and I loved seeing him grow and change as he switched factions and found his place in Dauntless. This gave an even more complete picture of the world and characters.

There are so many sides to Four and it is interesting to see him make his way and discover some of the problems within his society. Lots of hints about the future and you can see the foreshadowing for the Divergent trilogy. I loved it, there were parts that dragged for me, but seeing things through Four's eyes was fantastic. I highly recommend it especially if you loved Divergent.

Individual Story Ratings:
The Transfer: 4/5
The Initiate: 5/5
The Son: 4/5
The Traitor: 5/5

THANX!!!!

Fantastic writing. There’s a line in the book, “How is it possible to live the same story twice, from different vantage points?”, which is ironic and sums up half the book. Reading Divergent first is imperative. If you enjoy getting the other side of a story, this book is ideal.

There is quite a bit about child abuse in this book. (If you know the character Four, you know why.) There’s a part where Four is afraid that Tris would look at him with pity, and make him feel weak, small, and empty. But, of course, she doesn’t, she instead is angry at the abuser. To me, this is a really deep moment. All too often, those who have been abused, those who have experienced horrors without consent, feel they will be blamed — and, disgusting as it is, that does happen. There is hope and brilliance in a book that reinforces putting the blame on the abuser, on the attacker, on the person unable to control their own behavior. I’d give the book a sixth star just for this scene.

So being that I am a HUGE Divergent fan I was absolutely looking forward to be getting some more Four. I’m the type who loves a good male perspective, so when a novella or companion comes out from the leading man’s POV I pretty much freak out. Especially when I love him to pieces. Plus I wasn’t ready to let Divergent go completely out of my life (book wise, I know we still have films to look forward to).

We got a taste of Four in the re-written knife throwing scene from Divergent – mine was in the back of Insurgent, but I know it’s also an eBook – in Free Four. This was delicious! So then when it was announced that Allegiant was dual POV there were some squeals from this girl. And then to put the sherry on top Veronica came out with FOUR and I nearly had a heart attack.

The Transfer was the first novella released way back when, remember back when the plan was to release them as four separate eNovellas gradually over so many months. So despite having read it upon it’s original release, I read it again (duh…)

The Transfer is great great great back story, and I cannot deny that I began to have feelings for Amar. My favorite part about this one was Tobias at the choosing ceremony and hearing his own thoughts on each faction, then I went back to Divergent and compared them to Beatrice’s thoughts. It was delightful. Plus The Transfer is fantastic because we get to see Four be born! And the tension between Four and Eric is just so perfect. The whole story builds for the greatness that follows, it’s perfect.

Following that we have The Initiate. This was great because we got more of the Four/Eric feud. More of Amar. And just some more of Dauntless Four; which I love! I love the scene when Four gets his first tattoo, it might be my favorite scene in the whole book. We also got a little bit of awkward Four with Shauna, and I thought that was adorable. It makes you appreciate his love for Tris when you can see how weird he is around girls but then how swoon-y he is with her. Soul mates? YES!

The Son was my least favorite of the four. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it, but I felt there was a lot of info dumping going on. It was all necessary so we could see Four’s transition from from just suspicious of the Dauntless leaders and Jeanine Matthews to full blown distrust. It’s a shame that Jeanine’s crazy had spread to other faction leaders, Dauntless would’ve been so amazing had Tobias become a leader and ran the faction the way it was intended. That’s the kind of Dauntless I would want to be.

Last we have The Traitor, which I feel like is everyone’s favorite. We finally get some Fourtris action in this one and it’s nothing short of delightful. What’s great about it is that it’s not just the same chapters in Divergent repeated from his POV, no we get to see new stuff that was happening during Divergent. We get to see what Four’s up to when he’s not training the new initiates. It’s all really good stuff. But we also still get to see our favorite weak-in-the-knees scenes that we loved hearing the first time from Tris’s POV. For me there’s just something magical about a male’s perspective during romantic times. Hearing from the girl first is great because you get the swoon worthy angst and it’s all rainbows and fireworks, but then having the guy tell the same scene just makes me giddy. That takes a good amount of talent, so you go Veronica!

All in all Four was a great read and I’m painfully saddened that it’s over. There will always be re-reads, and there are 4 more movies coming, but the fact of the matter is that unless Veronica feels the need for more, Divergent is done. Nothing new will come across our eyes… so I’ll be crying in the corner if you need me.

She really enjoyed it.

The book was great at first but I lost interest about halfway through. I really did not enjoy the part where it overlapped with the original book and Tris arrived. I thought it would be interesting but it just felt like a partial retelling without as much detail due to the point of view. It would have been confusing if I had not read the original series. I think a book about Four that came after the third book would be interesting, showing us how he deals with the ending events of the third book.

Love the book, good purchase

Getting to know Tobias/Four in a more intimate way is such a gift, and reading from his perspective is fascinating. It was written beautifully, the details and corresponding dialogue to Divergent made it an interesting and engaging read! I highly recommend reading this book if you have read Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant, or if you like dystopian novels.

As someone who loved the series, when I found out that this was a book, I had to read it. I loved seeing the background and perspective from Four, and I loved that there was overlap with the series. The only thing that bothered me was the grammar. It’s filled with comma splices and other errors. That may just be me, but it was distracting.

Really didn't like it. In my optit was terrible lol.